Remote or noncontact sensing is desirable in applications where the environment to be sensed is incompatible with a sensing element. For example, in combustion processes, the temperature of the process may be greater than the sensing element can sustain. In such situations a remote or noncontact temperature sensor is desirable because the temperature sensor can be physically separated from the process. Furthermore, in some applications, development of a temperature distribution is desirable. In such applications, such as boiler monitoring, fuel cell monitoring, and a variety of manufacturing processes, an array of sensors that can provide two-dimensional or three-dimensional temperature information is desired. Currently available techniques use indirect approaches to estimate temperature distribution. For example, temperature distributions may be estimated using infrared imaging and numerical modeling. Nonetheless there remains a need for an improved noncontact sensor which can provide temperature information.